Wendy and I are busy planning our April eZine, and it's going to be Ella good!

In our Editor's Note, we'd like to share YOUR best layouts and projects that have been inspired by anything you've read or seen in an Ella eBook. Send your entries to submissions@ellapublishing.com with "April Inspirations" in the subject line by March 17, 2010 at midnight MST to be considered for this article! Make sure you explain which eBook inspired your page or project and include a complete supply list. We'll pick 3-5 winners who will be featured in the article and will each receive a free eBook of their choice. (Please click here for complete guidelines and quality standards.)

Here's one Ella inspiration submission we received a while back, just to get your creative juices flowing!

Nita Vleeming of The Netherlands was inspired by Stacy Julian's How to Make a Smiles Mini-book (half of the proceeds of which go to benefit Operation Smile). So she created this precious accordion album (size 2.5 x 2.5) for her tiny grandson.

How sweet is that? To see more of Nita's work, visit her on twopeasinabucket.com or Flickr.

Every now and then it's fun to get a little peek at the man behind the curtain. (No, I'm not revealing anything secret about my gender identity. I'm being figurative, folks!) So, here are a few fun "behind the scenes" tidbits about Ella Publishing Co.

Tidbit #1
Once a week or so, Wendy Smedley comes over to my house for a "work day." We really do try to focus, but there's SO much to talk about. We get quite a lot done, and we also spend plenty of time discussing books, parenting, movies, scrapbook industry gossip, Richard Armitage (hero of of our favorite BBC mini-series North & South), and so much more. (Disclaimer: we're both growing our hair out for either Locks of Love or Pantene Beautiful Lengths, and it's starting to drive us crazy!)

Tidbit #2
Joe the Programmer is the genius (and the little brother of one of my husband's high school chums) behind making Ella Publishing Co. work. Having come from the financial industry and worked in may other industries as well, he has seen his fair share of tech-support requests. And he's always floored by how NICE Ella readers are when they're reporting a problem.

Average tech support request: "Your website sucks. I downloaded a file yesterday, but today it disappeared. Please fix this immediately or give me my money back. I'll never order from you idiots again!"

Ella tech support request: "Hi! I LOVE what you guys are doing. Keep up the great work! I hate to bother you because I know you're busy, but it seems that a file I recently downloaded has disappeared from my account. Could you please look into this for me when you get a chance? xoxoxo! ~Janice"

The above may be a slight exaggeration, but it's only VERY slight. After the site had been live for 3 months, Joe the Programmer e-mailed me to say, "I'm shocked! You just got your first tech support complaint that DIDN'T end with 'xoxoxo'! How are you going to handle it? This customer might possibly be a bit disgruntled."

Well, I replied to that customer, offering her money back AND restoring the missing file to her. Her response? "Oh, you didn't have to give me the file AND return my money! Here, let me pay you for that again!" Of course, I wouldn't let her. But the level of kindness and respect among Ella customers is truly unprecedented.

Tidbit #3
We have picked a winner for Thursday's UR2 Cre8ive giveaway. And thanks to random.org, the winner is #11...Fun Mama Deanna!

We're also selecting the winner of our Six Weeks of Sketches challenge as we speak, and we'll post it later this week!

As you know, UR2 Cre8ive: 68 ways to unleash your creativity went on sale yesterday! But perhaps you didn't know that this eBook is based on the very first class Stacy Julian ever taught at bigpicturescrapbooking.com! And the messages inside are even more relevant today than they ever were.

Well, we'd like to reveal a few MORE fun facts that you may not have known before, so we interrogated....er, interviewed...Stacy herself to find out a bit more about this incredibly creative soul. And since the title of this eBook contains numbers in a very "cre8ive" way, today's "getting to know you" questionnaire is all about NUMBERS!

1. How old were you when you first started scrapbooking?
Well, I started my first scrapbook the summer I was 14. I had a really easy babysitting job, so my mom bought me a scrapbook at our local Hallmark store and handed me a box of childhood photos. More recently, I started when I was expecting Chase. I was 29.

2. How old were you when you finally felt like a "grown-up"?
I don't feel like a grown up.  I hope I never do. I mean this most sincerely.

3. How many times a day do you feel overwhelmed?
I'm overwhelmed at the thought of counting how many times a day I feel overwhelmed. Can I skip this question?

4. How many times a day do you stop, look around you, and realize how lucky/blessed you are?
Ok, now there's a question I want to answer. At least 53 times a day!

You don't have to be a kid to paint your toenails lots of fun colors! Visit Stacy's blog to read about the "oddly creative things" she does to brighten her day.

5. With five adorable kids at home now, how many grandchildren do you hope to have one day?
SO many!

6. How many gallons of milk does your family of seven go through in a week?
Six. I've got teenage boys and we ALL love cold cereal.

7. How many hours of sleep do you need per night (on average) to feel restful and energized?
I need more sleep the older I get. I would say 8, and I make this happen several times a week.

8. As an avid runner, what's the farthest distance you've run in a single day?
Too funny. I recently recalled this CRAZY experiment that I conducted when I was 15, where I ran one mile, at the top of the hour for 7 hours straight! Who does stuff like that? The longest I've run since then (other than the day I ran my marathon) is 18!

9. How many different brownie recipes do you have in your baking rotation (estimate)?
Oh goodness. I have LOTS. My friend Terri Musser in OK organized a brownie scrapbook for me with at least 30 recipes in it. I'm always cutting out recipes to try and the vast majority of the time I either use the Ghirardelli mix from Costco or my trusty low-fat recipe that I got back in 1997.

10. How many books have you written?
Five, if you count the special issue I wrote for Creating Keepsakes magazine before they really recognized authors.

11. How many classes have you personally taught at Big Picture Scrapbooking?
I think about 11 or 12.

12. How many different countries have you visited in order to teach scrapbooking classes?
Seriously, how many things are you going to make me count today? I'm going to guess seven.

13. What are the top 5 obstacles that women tell you get in the way of their creativity?
No time. No money. No where to start. No end in sight. No fun anymore. Please note: I do not except any of these as valid excuses.

14. How many of those 5 obstacles are addressed in UR2 Cre8ive?
In an effort to sell this book, let's say ALL of them! No really, you don't need to address obstacles. You need to teach yourself to see opportunities instead of obstacles. This is possible.

15. If there's another "UR2" message you'd want to tell women everywhere, besides "UR2 Cre8ive," what would it be?
UR2 Hard On Yourself. Seriously, stop and think about everything you do to contribute goodness to this world. Women are amazing.

Thank you for spending this time with us, Stacy! Thanks especially for encouraging us to see "opportunities" instead of "obstacles." Truly inspiring words. And thanks to those of you who shared your creative moments with us yesterday! The random winner of UR2 Cre8ive is commenter #16: tape.

Let's have another contest, shall we? To enter today's drawing for a free copy of UR2 Cre8ive, leave a comment answering question #15 for yourself. If there was a "UR2" message YOU'D like to impart to women everywhere, what would it be???

We are going to have some fun today. As we at Ella are getting ready to release our eighth e-book (I know so exciting!) we thought it would be fun to see if anyone could guess some information about this first time author. She is relatively unknown in the industry and we are thrilled to be the first to have discovered her many talents as a scrapbooker.

(by the way, one of the goals of Ella Pub was to discover brand new talent and share with the scrapbooking world)

Two questions for you today

1. What is the author's profession?

2. What is the author's last name?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The letters to our eighth author's last name are pictured below.

Good luck and have fun.

Oh and of course you will have a chance to win a goody. Post your guess in the comments by midnight (MST) Wednesday, January 13 to be entered to win a free ebook of your choosing.

Happy Monday!

Wendy and Angie are having a grand old time in our first big brainstoming session of the year. To kick things off, we decided to do a li'l video for ya'll to introduce Wendy to the Ella parade officially. Yay Wendy!

Let us be the first to apologize that this video is 10 minutes long, but there ARE cute shots of Angie's new puppy in the video, so for that reason only, it's worth watching!

AND, if you persevere through the entire video (honor system) and leave us a comment, we will pick TWO lucky winners who will receive either a copy of Quick & Creative Quizzes, by Wendy Smedley and Angie Lucas, or Quiz Printables by Cathy Zielske. Worth it? We think so.

Also, Wendy and Angie will be teaching a class based on this best-selling eBook at CHA in Anaheim! To register, click here and scroll down to Quick & Easy Quizzes (W0707). The class is Friday, January 22, at 5:00 p.m. Hope to see you there.

A warm welcome to Wendy!
**eBook drawing closed 1/13/10**

It's that time again! Time for a behind-the-scenes peek of our newest Scrapbook Ellaments issue. Here are five little background tidbits, just for fun:

1. Buh-Bye Beta
Did you notice that the Ella logo in the top left corner of your screen has shed a little bit of weight? That's right, her orange "beta" tag has disappeared. After four months being live, we now feel comfortable being out there without the protection of the beta tag, which in effect says "don't blame us if this site is a mess, we're still in the beta development stage!" Knock on wood. We really hope this won't be one of those occasions where the minute you pay off the car loan, you get rear-ended in your own driveway.

2. Blog Hop Barb
The very day Scrapbook Ellaments went live, we heard from a reader who was inspired by Barb's "Shop Your Stash" article to start a blog hop on her own site. If you were as inspired as Liberty Cottage was, head on over and join the fun. Way to inspire the world, Barb!

3. Apple of Elizabeth's Eye
We heard from a reader who was intrigued by Elizabeth Dillow's timeline layout in "Ten Years Later." (This was Elizabeth's first digi layout ever, by the way.) This reader wanted to know more about the program Elizabeth used to assemble the page, but unfortunately there was no e-mail address included in the comment, so we couldn't respond directly. Instead, we'll respond to everyone! Elizabeth used Apple's Pages software, which is a word-processing and desktop-publishing program. Here's a link to a short video overview of the program. The lesson? You don't have to be a Photoshop expert to try digital scrapbooking; you can use any program that will help you accomplish your goals.

4. The Rise of Valerie
With this latest issue, we discovered a new scrapbooking (and cookie-baking) talent! Without even realizing it, we requested three different submissions from scrapbooker Valerie Mangan all in the same week. We love it when that happens! She had three layouts featured in a pre-Christmas blog post, then we requested layouts for the "Editors' Corner" and "Stretch a Sketch" articles too. We have a feeling you might be seeing more great work from this up-and-comer in the scrapbooking world at large. What do you think?

5. Cover Calls
For our January issue, we limited our monthly cover contest to the members of the Write. Click. Scrapbook. collective, because we wanted to reward them for their hard work writing the awesome Year in the Life eBook, and we wanted to celebrate this fun new eBook's release. Our winner? Aly Dosdall. Read all about her here. And check out their eBook as soon as humanly possible, if you haven't yet.

And now for your chance to be a Scrapbook Ellaments cover girl:
We hereby announce our cover contest for our February issue of Scrapbook Ellaments! If your layout is chosen, you'll be profiled in our eZine, including a link to your blog if you'd like, and you'll receive a coupon code for the free eBook of your choice. Here's what we're looking for:

Love layouts. Share layouts you've created about love and romance. Your page might list all your favorite things about the love of your life, it could take a "he said, she said" angle, it could highlight a new flame, it could focus on your wedding or a memorable anniversary, it could spotlight your favorite couple (your parents, for example), or it could cover any other angle you choose! Read our submissions guidelines for complete details, and send in your layouts by Wednesday, January 13. Good luck!

Yesterday, we sent a special coupon code to all the members of our e-mail list, inviting them to save 10 percent on their entire purchase at Ella Publishing Co. What a great way to celebrate the arrival of 2010!

Did YOU get the e-mail?

If not, click here to add your name to the list! Then come back and leave a comment on this blog post TODAY (Tuesday) to let me know that you've just signed up, and I'll send you the code directly. Now you may have come across this code already on Twitter or FaceBook, and that's just fine by me, but if you want ME to give it to you, I'm going to make you work for it.

This exclusive sale ends Wednesday, so now's the time to buy that eBook you've had your eye on for a while.

Happy 2010!

(We can't emphasize enough how happy we are that 2009 is over. It just feels like the time is ripe for a fresh start. Are you feeling it too? Potential, possibilities, hope, exciting new eBooks...bring 'em on!)

We've clearly established that our new eBook, A Year in the Life, contains 174 photos and 24 layouts. But that, my friends, is certainly not all. We'd like to share a few more statistics about the most amazing, incredible, revolutionary, life-changing eBook you'll read for the REST OF THE YEAR.

Inside A Year in the Life, you'll also find:
* 30 pages of delightful ideas
* 12 photo checklists so you won't miss a single photo op over the coming year
* 120 individual ideas of photos to take
* 19 two-page layouts, featuring anywhere between 3 and 15 photos each
* 4 shots of fresh produce (raspberries, green beans, and more!)
* 23 talented designers, all from the Write. Click. Scrapbook. collective
* 37 mini-brads used as journaling bullet points on two separate layouts
* 24 extra "bright ideas" you'll be dying to try
* 13 different ways to include "2009" on a layout, from large titles to photo captions
* 7 scrumptious shots of Francine Clouden's tiny baby boy
* 6 darling digi layouts
* 19 perfectly paper layouts
* 14 different ways to arrange a photo collage
* 1 photo of Jen Wozab's feet

If you didn't think you needed to add this eBook to your collection before, you certainly do now. Am I right?

We are so excited to announce our latest eBook, A Year in the Life: Scrapbook your year in 24 simple layouts from the Write.Click.Scrapbook. collective! Tons of two-page spreads, digi and paper-based layouts, and multi-photo designs galore!

In celebration of this amazing eBook (can you say 23 designers, 24 layouts, 174 photos???), we've got not one but TWO giveaways this week. And we all know that the only thing better than ONE giveaway is TWO (or more, but let's not get carried away, folks...).

First off, the darling Ms. Elizabeth Dillow is teaching an abfab four-week workshop, Inspiration Defined, over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. If you don't know EDillow, you should! She's the co-founder of Write.Click.Scrapbook., the author of the Scrapbooker's Almanac, a former contributing editor at Simple Scrapbooks magazine, and the mom of three adorable girls (and wife of one adorable guy). She is simply inspiring all on her little lonesome, and I think it would be worth the class fee to just be able to bask in her reflected glory and perhaps touch the hem of her raiment. But knowing Elizabeth, she's got all sorts of amazing stuff planned for her students! And if you want to be one of them... we're offering one seat in this upcoming workshop for a lucky Ella reader.
 
To enter: Leave us a comment on this blog post, telling us what website(s) you go to for inspiration. Giveaway closes Friday at midnight-ish.

I'd like to welcome you to our first-ever "eZine Behind the Scenes" blog post. Did you catch that it rhymes just a little bit? Yeah, that was on purpose.

You may have noticed that our latest (and perhaps even our greatest) Scrapbook Ellaments issue is now up. If you haven't had the pleasure, click here and read until your heart's content.

Here are a few fun nuggets about the latest issue:

1. Ella Readers Rule
This issue marks the very first time an Ella reader has been featured on a Scrapbook Ellaments cover! The contest will be back for the February issue, so keep watching this blog and our submissions page for your chance to be featured on the cover and profiled in our eZine. But first, please pop on over and read all about this month's winner, the talented Jennifer Barksdale. What a find! Where has she been all our lives?

2. The T's Have It
There are two Tamis, one Tammy, and even a Tanja featured in this issue, and only one of them works for us. Everyone else was chosen through our submissions inbox. If your name didn't start with "T" this time around, it looks like you were out of luck. Sorry!

3. Shhhhh!
I'm going to tell you a little secret. Although the "T" names have some weird advantage when it comes to getting chosen for the eZine, it appears that "Sh" names are our most frequent tech-support requesters. If your name is something like Sheryl, Sharlynn, Sherlene, Shari, or Sharon (or any variation thereof), your computer is more likely than anyone else's to have a sudden power failure during an eBook download. So just be prepared. And don't worry, we've got geeks on staff who know how to help.

4. A Coupon? For Me?
For the first time ever, we're offering a special 25% coupon hidden somewhere inside our eZine. You'll have to read through all the articles to see if you can spot it, and then you can enjoy a li'l discount on us. (Well, it's not THAT hidden, but I'm not going to tell you where it is. You'll just have to look for it in Tami Morrison's article. Oops...)

5. You Can Join the Circle of Trust
Are you aware that you can receive a synopsis of our entire Ellaments issue right in your email inbox each month? There's even an exclusive "Deal of the Month" offer in each issue for you to enjoy. Plus, the hilarious Lain Ehmann writes this every month, so you KNOW it's going to be entertaining. Make sure you're on the list by clicking here. (Why am I harping on this? Because a little Poll tells me that 45% of you didn't hear about our Black Friday sale last week, which offered 20% off of EVERYTHING IN OUR STORE. If you'd been on our email list, you could have been first in line! Just saying...)

Okay, tune back in Monday for a few more highlights about our awesome December Scrapbook Ellaments issue!

Peace out, and peace on earth.
~Angie
:-)